Panasonic Australia

Australian Packaging Covenant Compliance

Panasonic Australia is a market leader in the field of consumer electronics, office and communications equipment. It is part of the Matsushita Group, a global network of more than 300 companies with 250,000 employees, which manufactures and markets over 15,000 products. Panasonic products have been sold in Australia since 1962; the Australian company was established in 1978.

APC has undertaken nine annual waste audits of Panasonic facilities to measure and monitor its waste management performance for internal reporting, trend analysis and its obligations under the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC).

The initial waste audit of the corporate head office and retail outlet was used to quantify the current situation together with a cost–benefit analysis of a range of strategies to improve performance were presented in a comprehensive waste management plan. Panasonic adopted the plan in its entirety. In 2001, interstate offices, warehousing and distribution centres were included to gain more baseline data.

In just three months of introducing changes diversion from landfill at corporate head office jumped from 13 to 57 per cent.

Repeated annual audits over nine consecutive years reveal an increase from a baseline of just 13 per cent to 90 per cent landfill diversion in 2009.

This is an outstanding result and demonstrates continuous improvement by the organisation. There is potential to increase diversion by a further 5 per cent to 95 per cent, if and when food waste can be diverted.

With ongoing commitment, education and communication with staff, the company is exceeding best practice.